But in all seriousness, I've seen dick in terms of "Change we can believe in". Shit, I'll take "Change HE can believe in." at this point.

What's the change, Ele? And who's the "he" whose judgment we all have to buy into? Hopefully it's not someone who's into making the people servants of the central government, though it's difficult right now to find a viable politician who isn't into government control of everyone's life in one way or another. Doing the truly revolutionary thing of returning power to the states and the people is terrifying because we've all been taught that Washington will take care of everything. But by not doing so, we'll continue to have these lovely little internecine conflicts over which party gets to take away which rights when it's their turn to ruin, I mean run the country.

"The constitutional propriety of Congress's decision to decline to extend federal benefits immediately to newly recognized types of marriages is bolstered by Congress's articulated interest in preserving the scarce resources of both the federal and State governments. DOMA ensures that evolving understandings of the institution of marriage at the State level do not place greater financial and administrative obligations on federal and state benefits programs. Preserving scarce government resources — and deciding to extend benefits incrementally — are well-recognized legitimate interests under rational-basis review. See Butler, 144 F.3d at 625 ("There is nothing irrational about Congress's stated goal of conserving social security resources, and Congress can incrementally pursue that goal."); Hassan v. Wright, 45 F.3d 1063, 1069 (7th Cir. 1995) ("[P]rotecting the fisc provides a rational basis for Congress' line drawing in this instance."). Congress expressly relied on these interests in enacting DOMA: Government currently provides an array of material and other benefits to married couples in an effort to promote, protect, and prefer the institution of marriage. . . . If [a State] were to permit homosexuals to marry, these marital benefits would, absent some legislative response, presumably have to be made available to homosexual couples and surviving spouses of homosexual marriages on the same terms as they are now available to opposite-sex married couples and spouses. To deny federal recognition to same-sex marriages will thus preserve scarce government resources, surely a legitimate government purpose."

Plaintiffs are married, and their challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act ("DOMA") poses a different set of questions: whether by virtue of their marital status they are constitutionally entitled to acknowledgment of their union by States that do not recognize same-sex marriage, and whether they are similarly entitled to certain federal benefits. Under the law binding on this Court, the answer to these questions must be no.

DOMA reflects a cautiously limited response to society's still-evolving understanding of the institution of marriage.

Because DOMA does not restrict any rights that have been recognized as fundamental or rely on any suspect classifications, it need not be reviewed with heightened scrutiny. Properly understood, the right at issue in this case is not a right to marry. After all, the federal government does not, either through DOMA or any other federal statute, issue marriage licenses or determine the standards for who may or may not get married. Indeed, as noted above — and as evidenced by the fact that plaintiffs have married in California — DOMA in no way prohibits same-sex couples from marrying. Instead, the only right at issue in this case is a right to receive certain benefits on the basis of a same-sex marriage. No court has ever found such a right to federal benefits on that basis to be fundamental — in fact, all of the courts that have considered the question have rejected such a claim. (And even if the right at issue in this case were the right to same-sex marriage, current Supreme Court precedent that binds this Court does not recognize such a right under the Constitution.) Likewise, DOMA does not discriminate, or permit the States to discriminate, on the basis of a suspect classification; indeed, the Ninth Circuit has held that sexual orientation is not a suspect classification.

I am not entirely convinced this is anything more than a punt from the 1 yard line. Legal types are ripping up the cushions to figure this out and finding that the underlying statement is more "but it's Congress' fault, so unless they do something, oops, yer screwed." Basically, "not my problem".

Obama talks soaringly of Kennedy, not realizing he is emulating the most ironic aspect of his presidency, Kennedy's inaction on Civil Rights and shitty moves. Kennedy refused to act when compelled, not wanting to anger southern whites. He even ordered MLK wiretapped. It was not until forced that he acted and had a Senator draft the Civil Rights Act, which he took to Congress. Basically, death and civil strife forced his hand.

Obama is similarly leadfooted.

The Supreme Court protects the Constitution, The Congress protects its home district, but the President protects his votes. Same ole.

Lots to be disappointed about.

This is true but it's still an improvement, which admittedly isn't saying much.

All of this may be legally correct and perhaps I am overreacting.

LGBT Legal And Advocacy Groups Decry Obama Administration's Defense of DOMA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 12, 2009

We are very surprised and deeply disappointed in the manner in which the Obama administration has defended the so-called Defense of Marriage Act against Smelt v. United States, a lawsuit brought in federal court in California by a married same-sex couple asking the federal government to treat them equally with respect to federal protections and benefits. The administration is using many of the same flawed legal arguments that the Bush administration used. These arguments rightly have been rejected by several state supreme courts as legally unsound and obviously discriminatory.

We disagree with many of the administration’s arguments, for example that DOMA is a valid exercise of Congress’s power, is consistent with Equal Protection or Due Process principles, and does not impinge upon rights that are recognized as fundamental.

We are also extremely disturbed by a new and nonsensical argument the administration has advanced suggesting that the federal government needs to be "neutral" with regard to its treatment of married same-sex couples in order to ensure that federal tax money collected from across the country not be used to assist same-sex couples duly married by their home states. There is nothing "neutral" about the federal government’s discriminatory denial of fair treatment to married same-sex couples: DOMA wrongly bars the federal government from providing any of the over one thousand federal protections to the many thousands of couples who marry in six states. This notion of "neutrality" ignores the fact that while married same-sex couples pay their full share of income and social security taxes, they are prevented by DOMA from receiving the corresponding same benefits that married heterosexual taxpayers receive. It is the married same-sex couples, not heterosexuals in other parts of the country, who are financially and personally damaged in significant ways by DOMA. For the Obama administration to suggest otherwise simply departs from both mathematical and legal reality.

When President Obama was courting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, he said that he believed that DOMA should be repealed. We ask him to live up to his emphatic campaign promises, to stop making false and damaging legal arguments, and immediately to introduce a bill to repeal DOMA and ensure that every married couple in America has the same access to federal protections.

Signed:
American Civil Liberties Union
Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders
Human Rights Campaign
Lambda Legal
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce

Folks who read the DOMA brief the Obama administration filed in California this morning—the one that compared gay marriage to incest and child rape and rehearsed numerous anti-gay arguments favored by the religious right—said that it read like it was written by the Bush administration. It went way beyond the half-hearted perforce defense of DOMA that folks were braced for. It was breathtakingly bigoted, like something written by a graduate of Jerry Falwell's madrassa, Liberty University. Well guess what? It was written by the Bush administration.

And guess what else? He's a Mormon.

Do you think the Obama administration is letting Bush holdovers work on healthcare reform?

Do you think they're letting Bush holdovers work on Iraq policy? Do you think they're letting Bush holdovers work on economic policy? Do you think they're letting Bush holdovers manage Sotomayor's confirmation process? Of course not. Because all of those things matter to the Obama administration. They give a shit about healthcare and Iraq and the economy and the Supreme Court nominee. They don't give a shit about gay rights—they don't give a shit about gay soldiers being hounded out of the military or gay spouses being turned away from their partners' sickbeds or binational gay couples facing deportation or the HIV travel ban or gay parents or anything else that touches our lives. Or as the always-cooler-headed-than-me Andrew Sullivan put it...

Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.

A heads up from Dallas Principles co-author Paul Yandura via email:

1. Chuck Todd on the Rachel Maddow show said that the benefits will not extend past this administration since it is a "memorandum" not an Executive Order-and will actually expire when Obama leaves office.

2. The Advocate is reporting that the "same sex partner benefits" will not include health benefits or retirement, the only benefit they have identified is relocation costs for a partner. See the quote below from Len Hirsch, President of Federal GLOBE:

"Our analysis has been that it will take an act of Congress for the full suite of benefits such as health benefits and retirement benefits to be provided for same-sex couples and families," said Leonard Hirsch, president of Federal Globe: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Employees of the Federal Government. Hirsch said the executive branch has the authority to extend a suite of other benefits, which would include things like providing relocation costs for a partner.

Obama blocks list of visitors to White House

Has Obama fulfilled those pledges and lived up to those commitments -- even remotely? Just examine the facts and judge for yourself:

February 9, New York Times:

In a closely watched case involving rendition and torture [Mohamed v. Jeppesen Data], a lawyer for the Obama administration seemed to surprise a panel of federal appeals judges on Monday by pressing ahead with an argument for preserving state secrets originally developed by the Bush administration.

February 21, Huffington Post:

The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.

February 27, Associated Press:

The Obama administration has lost its argument that a potential threat to national security should stop a lawsuit challenging the government's warrantless wiretapping program. . . . The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, claimed national security would be compromised if a lawsuit brought by the Oregon chapter of the charity, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, was allowed to proceed.

April 7, The Atlantic:

The Obama Administration still wants to keep its secrets. Yesterday, the Justice Department [in a case brought against Bush officials for illegal spying] embraced the argument that the state secrets privilege . . . should shut down any litigation against the National Security Agency for its arguably illegal warrantless surveillance program.

April 28, New York Times:

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a lawsuit brought by five men who say they were tortured as part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s “extraordinary rendition” program could proceed, dealing a blow to efforts by both the Bush and Obama administrations to claim sweeping executive secrecy powers.

May 12, Washington Times:

The Obama administration says it may curtail Anglo-American intelligence sharing if the British High Court discloses new details of the treatment of a former Guantanamo detainee. . . . In February, the British Foreign Office claimed that the U.S. government had threatened to reduce intelligence cooperation if details of the interrogations and treatment of Mr. Mohamed were disclosed.

May 14, Washington Post:

President Obama yesterday chose secrecy over disclosure, saying he will seek to block the court-ordered release of photographs depicting the abuse of detainees held by U.S. authorities abroad.

May 22, San Francisco Chronicle:

A federal judge on Friday threatened to severely sanction the Obama Administration for withholding a top secret document he ordered given to lawyers suing the government over its warrantless wiretapping program. . . . The National Security Agency has also refused the judge's previous orders to provide security clearances to two of the charity's lawyers so they can view the top secret document.

June 1, Washington Post Editorial page:

The [Graham-Lieberman] measure, supported by the White House and passed May 21 as an attachment to a Senate funding bill, would put beyond the reach of FOIA any photographs taken between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 22, 2009 . . . [W]hat makes the administration's support for the photographic records act so regrettable [is that in] taking a step aimed at protecting the country's service members, Mr. Obama runs the risk of taking two steps back in his quest for more open government.

June 9, Washington Post:

The Obama administration objected yesterday to the release of certain Bush-era documents that detail the videotaped interrogations of CIA detainees at secret prisons, arguing to a federal judge that doing so would endanger national security and benefit al-Qaeda's recruitment efforts. In an affidavit, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta defended the classification of records describing the contents of the 92 videotapes, their destruction by the CIA in 2005 and what he called "sensitive operational information" about the interrogations.

June 12, Associated Press:

The Obama administration has decided to keep secret the locations of nearly four dozen coal ash storage sites that pose a threat to people living nearby. The Environmental Protection Agency classified the 44 sites as potential hazards to communities while investigating storage of coal ash waste after a spill at a Tennessee power plant in December.

June 16, McClatchy:

Defense Department officials are debating whether to ignore an earlier promise and squelch the release of an investigation into a U.S. airstrike last month, out of fear that its findings would further enrage the Afghan public, Pentagon officials told McClatchy Monday.

June 16, ABC News:

After being briefed today on President Obama’s firing last week of Gerald Walpin, Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the president did not abide by the same law that he co-sponsored – and she wrote – about firing Inspectors General. . . . “The legislation which was passed last year requires that the president give a reason for the removal," [McCaskill said]. McCaskill, a key Obama ally, said that the president’s stated reason for the termination, “Loss of confidence’ is not a sufficient reason.”

June 17, Washington Post:

President Obama has embraced Bush administration justifications for denying public access to White House visitor logs even as advisers say they are reviewing the policy of keeping secret the official record of comings and goings.

– In 2006, Obama critized Cheney’s secret energy meetings: “When big oil companies are invited into the White House for secret energy meetings, it’s no wonder they end up with billions in tax breaks.” [1/26/06]

– In 2007, Obama promised on his first day to: “launch the most sweeping ethics reform in history to make the White House the people’s house and send the Washington lobbyists back to K Street.” [6/22/07]

– In 2008, Obama told Wisconsin voters: “This change will not be easy. It will require reforming our politics by taking power away from the lobbyists who kill good ideas and good plans with secret meetings and campaign checks.” [9/22/08]

During the presidential primaries, then-candidate Obama promoted himself as the biggest defender of gay rights since Harvey Milk. He would be a "fierce advocate" for our rights, he promised, and he even out-gayed Hillary Clinton: telling gay and lesbian voters that while she was for a partial repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), he'd get rid of the whole damn thing.

And there was much rejoicing.

Then, not so much.

About a year before the November election, primary challenger Obama invited Donnie McClurkin, a homophobic gospel singer who claims to have been "cured" of his own homosexuality, to lead a series of concerts in the South in order to woo the black vote. The gays were not amused, but candidate Obama held firm. The gays forgave the Big O until a year later, when then-President-elect Obama chose evangelical preacher (and well-known homophobe) Rick Warren to give the inaugural prayer. Again, the gays expressed their ire, Obama wouldn't budge, and his advisers continued to whisper sweet nothings in our ears about how glorious the future would be once Dear Leader was finally in office.

But a funny thing happened on the way to equality. Rather than clouds opening up and angels descending from on high, Barack Obama became president and things never got better for the gays. In fact, they got decidedly worse.

On taking office, Obama immediately announced that he was doing away with the Clinton-era concept of special assistants who served as liaisons to various communities like gays and Latinos. He then went ahead and appointed special liaisons to some of those communities anyway, but never to the gays. Around the same time, the White House Web site, once detailing half a page of presidential promises to the gay community, overnight saw those pledges shortened to three simple sentences. Gone were five of the eight previous commitments, including the promises to repeal both Don't Ask Don't Tell and DOMA. Adding to a growing sense of angst, senior White House officials kept telling the media that they weren't sure when, if ever, the president would follow through on his promises to the gay community. Then there were the cabinet appointees. Three Latino nominees but nary a gay in sight. And finally, last week our president had his Department of Justice file a brief in defense of DOMA, a law he had once called "abhorrent." In that brief, filed on the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia (which outlawed bans on inter-racial marriage), our own inter-racial Harvey Milk, not lacking a sense of historical irony, compared our love to incest and pedophilia.

Shit, meet fan.

Tonight, President Fierce will try to make amends by signing either a memorandum, a directive, or an executive order, directing some federal agencies, but not others, to provide some benefits, but not others, to some gay federal employees, but not others, at some undisclosed time in the future. (And the benefits may reportedly go away when Obama leaves office.)

First problem, federal agencies already have the right to provide these benefits to gay employees -- and several, including at least one DOD agency, do. Second problem, the administration can’t tell us exactly which benefits they’re talking about and for which employees. That’s because this was all hastily thrown together after the incestuous and pedophilic gays nearly brought down a Democratic National Committee gay pride fundraiser scheduled for next week. A gay blogger got hold of the event’s guest list and published it, and once Washington, D.C.’s gay paper, the Washington Blade, announced that it would be staking out the entrance to the event with camera and video, the $1,000 a head attendees started dropping like flies.

In other words, the only reason we're getting anything: The gay ATM ran dry.

As far as koolaid, it reminds me of the guy a few blocks from my house that had a sign in his front yard giving a running total of dead in the Iraq war during the Bush years. He took it down after the election. Was it just grandstanding on his part, at this point I have to assume so.

While I think he could do more to end the war in a more speedy fashion, I also understand that it's more difficult to end a war than it is to start one, especially if you have concern for our troops safety, the stability of the region, and not mucking up a situation your own country started.

ABC is refusing to air paid ads during its White House health care presentation, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned, including a paid-for alternative viewpoint!

The development comes a day after the network denied a request by the Republican National Committee to feature a representative of the party's views during the Obama special.

While I personally agree that any sort of withdrawal has to be orderly, Obamas withdrawal schedule is no faster than Bushes and probably slower. If the guy is against the war as the sign seemed to infer and not just against Bush then my point is valid. People need to keep Obamas feet to the fire as well if they want things done the way he claimed he was going to do. The press giving him a pass for this period is not doing us any favors.

We'll never really know when Bush would have withdrawn. If new realities in the region made Obama feel like he had no choice but to extend the deadline, who's to say Bush wouldn't have extended it even further than that when faced with those same realities?

As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications." The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure. Since Obama pledged on his first day in office to usher in a "new era" of openness, "nothing has changed," says David -Sobel, a lawyer who litigates FOIA cases. "For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies."

The hard line appears to be no accident. After Obama's much-publicized Jan. 21 "transparency" memo, administration lawyers crafted a key directive implementing the new policy that contained a major loophole, according to FOIA experts. The directive, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, instructed federal agencies to adopt a "presumption" of disclosure for FOIA requests. This reversal of Bush policy was intended to restore a standard set by President Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno. But in a little-noticed passage, the Holder memo also said the new standard applies "if practicable" for cases involving "pending litigation." Dan Metcalfe, the former longtime chief of FOIA policy at Justice, says the passage and other "lawyerly hedges" means the Holder memo is now "astonishingly weaker" than the Reno policy. (The visitor-log request falls in this category because of a pending Bush-era lawsuit for such records.)

Administration officials say the Holder memo was drafted by senior Justice lawyers in consultation with Craig's office. The separate standard for "pending" lawsuits was inserted because of the "burden" it would impose on officials to go "backward" and reprocess hundreds of old cases, says Melanie Ann Pustay, who now heads the FOIA office. White House spokesman Ben LaBolt says Obama "has backed up his promise" with actions including the broadcast of White House meetings on the Web. (Others cite the release of the so-called torture memos.) As for the visitor logs, LaBolt says the policy is now "under review."

The Obama administration is also continuing the Bush administration’s abuse of the state-secrets privilege. Lawyers from the Obama Justice Department have argued, as did lawyers from the Bush administration before them, that a lawsuit involving extraordinary rendition and allegations of extreme torture should be dismissed outright because discussions of such matters in court would harm national security.

In other words, the victims, no matter how strong their case might be, no matter how badly they might have been abused, could never have their day in court. Jane Mayer, writing in the June 22 New Yorker, said of the rendition program, in which suspects were swept up by Americans and spirited off to foreign countries for imprisonment and interrogation: “As many as seven detainees were misidentified and abducted by mistake.”

The Bush and Obama view of the state-secrets privilege effectively bars any real examination of such egregious mistakes.

It was thought by many that a President Obama would put a stop to the madness, put an end to the Bush administration’s nightmarish approach to national security. But Mr. Obama has shown no inclination to bring even the worst offenders of the Bush years to account, and seems perfectly willing to move ahead in lockstep with the excessive secrecy and some of the most egregious activities of the Bush era.

That said, you'd probably find people more willing to engage with you if you weren't:
A: So incredibly obtuse and unwilling to consider another viewpoint. I.E. Obama is not the anti-christ.

B: If you weren't so fucking incredibly arrogant about it, which is entirely unwarranted. You're not the smartest kid in the class guy.

Gonna add a C: If you didn't treat any and every one who voted for Obama as a skycrasher fanboi.

I'm just following up to challenges made to me on this thread, Surcam. Fribur specifically wants me to prove that Obama is a liar. The statement Obama made was that they've used the state secrets privilege less than Bush did. All I did was post something from a major news organization (something Tyral claimed I could not do, as apparently using the most-cited reporter, Glenn Greenwald, wasn't good enough) by a report who has really gushed about Obama.

What bothers you about that? The fact that a few weeks have passed? The fact that I am an arrogant ass about it? if the former - well, sorry. I read a LOT of news during the day, and when I see something that strikes a chord, I post about it. If the latter, there's plenty of arrogance to go around.

How can you say you don't carry the baggage of election debate with you when your post is *rife* with baggage from past interactions.

Here's a serious question for you. If something happens, a specific action, why can't we judge that action? You assume that i'm judging his presidency - I'm not. I'm judging his commitment to his promises. That's a legitimate thing to do, and you can complain about it as much as you want. If Obama says he's against DOMA, then files a brief that goes far beyond his obligations in FAVOR of DOMA, can't I judge that? If Obama says he's for open and transparent government, then does things like refusing to reveal visitor logs, tries to put in place laws that invalidate the FOIA, etc.. can't i judge him for that? What, exactly, is wrong about judging his promises against his literal actions? At the end of the day, what do I need to prove? I am the most vocal Obama detractor. I've started several posts praising his actions on things that I agree with. How many Obama supporters have started new posts criticizing him?

Here's another question for you. Is it better to look at politicians and government through a critical and distrusting eye, or an optimistic and trusting eye? it may help you understand me if you realize that I am emphatically looking at it as a fierce cynic. Especially after the past 8 years. I'm not a Democratic - I'm independent. I'm under absolutely no obligation to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

Obviously Sir, you can do whatever the hell you want.

Oh man, if you were in my position over the past 18 months, you'd be the same, heh. It didn't start out that way, but taking grenades in the trenches kind of shapes how you respond to the people throwing the grenades.

I wonder how you'd feel if you had been the one warning people that Obama was full of shit, had accusations of being racist thrown at you, and been proven right on at least some of the things. It's not a recipe for happy thoughts.

The statement Obama made was that they've used the state secrets privilege less than Bush did. All I did was post something from a major news organization (something Tyral claimed I could not do, as apparently using the most-cited reporter, Glenn Greenwald, wasn't good enough) by a report who has really gushed about Obama.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Obama honored Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month with a White House reception Monday where he likened the struggle for gay rights with the struggle of African-Americans for civil rights.

With first lady Michelle Obama at his side, the president told the cheering crowd filling the East Room that his administration would work to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays in the military.

"I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that," Obama said. "It's not for me to tell you to be patient any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half-century ago."

We have Joxur the martyr over here, man of the people. Not one grenade tossed by Joxur, no doubt =)

BEWARE THE OBAMA 'EVIL EYE'
Tue Jun 30 2009 07:43:56 ET

As the summer begins, White House watchers have spotted a new look by President Obama: The Evil Eye!

Staffers have joked about the menacing glance, which comes when the president meets with world leaders who are not aligned with his progressive view.

White House photographers have captured the "evil eye" in recent weeks, during sessions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Colombia's Alvaro Uribev.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got hit with the commander's malocchio last week in the Oval office.

And at least one White House reporter has been on the receiving end of the daggers during a press conference.

Developing..

It's not a recipe for happy thoughts.

Rugen, are you saying that if he hasn't repealed DOMA and DADT before the 2012 elections, you won't vote for Obama? What if he promises that he will do it in his second term?

Help help, I'm being repressed!

Stop this criticism at once! We're supposed to be blind Obamabots who have automatically endorsed Bush's policies now that the President is from a different party in order to better fit Joxur's narrow-minded view of people!

If he hasn't done SOMETHING to keep his promises along those lines, he's lost one voter. Because that will be 4 years of words and 1 action (very harmful intent and action in the defense of DOMA). If he can't at least try, neither can I.

So I'm in wait and see mode. Not much else I can do. He has his shot. We'll see what he does with it, I guess.

That's reasonable. But, you better get ready for the long haul.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090701/ap_ ... n_military

I can't imagine it's anywhere on the agenda if the administration is talking about softening DADT and making it more humane - while keeping it in place.